Humbaba: The Cedar Forest Guardian Gilgamesh Killed
The monstrous guardian of the Cedar Forest, wrapped in seven terrors, whom Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed against the will of the gods.
Humbaba (Huwawa) is the guardian of the Cedar Forest, appointed by Enlil to keep people out, whom Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed. The Book of Giants names a giant Hobabish, widely taken as Humbaba.
Humbaba (Sumerian Huwawa) is the guardian of the Cedar Forest, the dwelling of the gods, appointed by Enlil to keep people out. In the Sumerian poem Gilgamesh and Huwawa, he has seven 'terrors' or auras, radiances of divine power. Gilgamesh tricks him into giving them up one by one, in return for gifts, and then Enkidu cuts his throat.
In the Babylonian epic the same fight fills Tablets IV and V. Humbaba's roar is the flood, his mouth is fire, and his breath is death. The standard version places the forest in the west, and names Sirion, an old name for Mount Hermon, and Lebanon as shaking under the struggle.
His face was said to be made of coiled entrails, and Babylonian diviners made small clay masks of Humbaba's face shaped from intestines, used in reading omens from the guts of sacrificed animals. Examples are in the British Museum. The diviners compared the patterns of real entrails with the face of the monster.
Humbaba also crosses into Jewish tradition. The Aramaic Book of Giants found at Qumran names a giant Hobabish, widely taken as Humbaba, alongside a giant named Gilgamesh. Because the Watchers descended on Hermon in 1 Enoch, some readers link Humbaba's forest to the Watchers' landing place. Scholars note that the Book of Giants clearly drew on Babylonian names, which shows how far the Gilgamesh stories travelled.
Babylonian fortune-tellers made clay masks of Humbaba whose faces were formed from a single coiled intestine.
Scholars see Humbaba as a mythic forest guardian reflecting Mesopotamian expeditions for Lebanese cedar; the Hermon link to the Watchers is a modern reading, not an ancient one.
